


Hearts, Horns & Hnefatafl

by SalamanderArt (SalamanderInk), yamyamyam



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bilgesnipe (Marvel), Characters who are literally and figuratively horny, Loki sasses the universe, M/M, Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2020, Quests, Temporary Character Death, The universe sasses back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:16:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27608204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalamanderInk/pseuds/SalamanderArt, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yamyamyam/pseuds/yamyamyam
Summary: Loki just wants to earn his shaman's title without having to bang anyone. Sex is great and all, but have you ever bent the universe to your will using your own inborn power and strength of desire? See 'cause Loki totally has.The council of elders just wants Loki to be happy and also not to die permanently. Traditionally this involves taking a partner to share the burden of magic. What is wrong with tradition, Loki.Prince Tony just wants... well mostly not to be freezing to death after being poisoned and dumped through a portal by a jealous cousin. I mean that would be a good start. And then like, lunch. And a few rounds of hnefatafl? Tony'sreally goodat hnefatafl. What?Featuring quests! Capricious gods! Capricious caverns! Capricious Lokis! So many horns! Eventually smooching! And the hella-sweet art of SalamanderInk, OMG, you GUYS, go look at the not one, not two, but FIVE gorgeous paintings of these two horny guys. <3 <3 <3 I could not believe my luck when I got this bang assignment. - yamyamyamFor the Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2020!
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Comments: 43
Kudos: 211
Collections: FrostIron, Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2020





	Hearts, Horns & Hnefatafl

"Loki, child—" The Eldest One pinches the bridge of her nose, shuffling her feet a bit on her column of ice.

"Hetchel, I am hardly a child. I am here to claim my staff, so I can begin my trial, and—"

"I heard you, dear! But it is hard to take you seriously when you come to us, again, with no partner. You are a clever young creature, Loki, so I know you will remember what we have taught you. No one can survive the journey to the other side without a partner to ground them! We are not withholding your staff out of malice, child. We want only to keep you safe, until the day when you are ready to venture forth in the traditional manner of our people."

"Are you quite finished?" Loki looks up from an elaborate game of cat's cradle he has conjured between his hands.

"You would do well to be less impertinent if you truly wish for our blessing, young one!" The Eldest One looks rather in need of a headache draught, in Loki's professional opinion. Still, probably better not to offer one, considering.

"Hetchel, let's stop playing the boy's game. I want to know what he's hiding beneath that glamour." This from Bodil, the healer who passed Loki in medicine two autumns past. In the course of his instruction Bodil had witnessed enough of Loki's sense of humour to be suspicious of the least hint of illusion, which... was probably fair.

Loki smiles, caught, and waves a hand, dismissing the illusory head of hair crowning him and displaying his true head in all its glory. Its... considerably _taller_ glory compared to the last time he stood before the Council of Nine. Gasps echo from all sides but one—Bodil seems unsurprised—as the councillors take in his horns. Not even all of the council members have horns; not everyone's trial leads them to death. Let alone—

"Loki Laufeyson, what have you done?" whispers Hetchel after a long moment of horrified wonder. 

Loki cringes. It's his name, true enough, but he'd as soon not be reminded of his paternal heritage, thank you very much. Indeed that's why he wants to get this bloody trial over with, so he can move out of Laufey's shadow at last. 

"I did what anyone does to earn horns, mother Hetchel. I died."

"But you have no partner! Or do you? Are you simply hiding your partner from us? Loki, whatever we have done to make you feel you must hide your lover—"

"I swear to you, Eldest of Nine, if I could circumvent this tedious line of query at every single encounter with you all merely by displaying a shocking lover, I would have done so long since. The very moment I so much as kiss the forehead of a graven image with lustful intent I shall be sure to notify you."

"But your horns! No one has ever—"

"Someone is the first to try every feat of note," says Loki quietly. "And it turns out," he continues archly, "that strength of will may suffice in place of an ardent tie." Well. Goat-strong stubbornness had been the phrase the presence on the other side had used, and one set of his horns took a distinctly ovine form as, he supposed, a reminder. Still, the other was a fine traditional rack of antlers, as broad and inconvenient as any starry-eyed novice could wish for. Hmm. Larger than Elder Ragnbjorg's, now that he stood close enough to compare. Good. Maybe Ragnbjorg would be a little less high and mighty now.

Then again, maybe not. As if summoned, Ragnbjorg's rusty voice pipes up. "And what deviltry suffices to get a man TWO sets of horns, mm, young upstart?"

"I died twice."

Silence.

Loki looks down at his nails, letting golden sparkles tease their way over and under his fingers. "Honestly, Ragnbjorg, I should think you could count to two."

Ragnbjorg sputters. Bodil is hiding a grin behind a hand. Hetchel twitches a smile and then schools her expression to one more befitting the solemnity of her rank. 

Loki really hopes he never attains a rank that calls for solemnity.

Hetchel floats down from her column and approaches him, reaches out a kind hand to tip his chin up to look into his eyes, then brushes a finger along first his antlers, then his ram's horns. "Well, they seem real enough to me. You may take as your final journey task writing up the tale of how, precisely, you died—twice!—and returned to us, without a partner, and well do I look forward to reviewing it. But I see no reason now to delay your trial of mastery." She raises her voice slightly, and it takes on a resonant, penetrating quality. "Loki Laufeyson!"

"I am here, Eldest of Nine," replies Loki, head high, voice firm. Laufey's son or not, he will not bow his head here, not today, and after his trial, not anywhere ever again.

"You are marked of the Gods! You have passed to the farther shore and been granted the boon of return." She pauses, a twinkle in her eye, and adds: "Twice."

"I am returned," agrees Loki.

"He is returned," echo the other eight councillors, even Ragnbjorg. He's set in his ways, but that includes respecting the authority of the Eldest; he won't stand in Loki's way now that Hetchel has sanctioned him.

"No one returns from the Gods but that they have a task to undertake. Marked one, accept this staff of office, that all who see you may know you for a questor." Hetchel raises her hands high, and a twining vine cracks through the ice at their feet, growing rapidly taller than Loki himself stands. It turns to gold all at once, set with green crystals betokening his status as a full healer, and a blue crystal naming him an illusionist. That last is certainly not an official accreditation like his study of medicine; but apparently that's what he gets for presenting his case with a magic wig on. A shaman's staff takes on the character of its holder. He could do worse than have a staff with a sense of humour, he supposes.

Loki reaches out to accept the staff. Hetchel is leading a chant of benison and blessing upon him and his trial, and though the words are spoken in unison, Loki can't seem to follow them; as soon as his hand grips the staff he is struck as if by lightning, sparks of power and portent flowing through him. It feels like the staff is writing on his _bones._

Well. That's certainly an experience.

He's on his knees when he comes back to himself, sweating and breathing heavily. The Council of Nine has dispersed at some point; only Bodil is still here. Seeing that Loki has emerged from his stupor, he rousts himself from the ice block he was sitting on and walks over, cradling Loki's face in his sure hands and looking into his pupils with an expert eye, pressing a pair of fingers to his pulse for a moment, then releasing him. "You'll live," he pronounces. "Well. Depending on what you plan for your trial, at any rate. Figuring on dying again, my horned apprentice?"

"It worked well enough the first two times," Loki brazens out, teeth chattering a bit. He shakes himself and wills his body to settle down. He is the scion of the lord of the frost giants; chattering teeth is a bit ridiculous, all things considered. 

Bodil raises an eyebrow but lets this pass; he's known Loki long enough to know that pressing will only make him double-down on whatever contrary notion he harbours. "The shivering will pass in a few hours," he says instead. "It's no small thing, being granted a staff. And," he adds, "usually one has a partner to share the burden with."

Loki bristles. "I should think that the staff makes it clear that I need. No. Partner!"

Bodil puts up both hands in surrender. "Peace, Loki! I mean only that it's a wonder you aren't still in a trance, with no one to draw you from it. If the Gods have returned you alone, I will not gainsay them."

Loki snorts.

"Well, not much," amends Bodil. "I'm just worried about you, my boy. Don't fancy wasting all that time on an apprentice only to have them die off before I can retire.

Loki softens. "I assure you, master Bodil, I have no intention of dying any time soon." Not permanently, anyway. Probably.

"Good man. Now off to bed with you. Your trial begins in the morning."

=====

The thing is, Loki kind of _does_ plan to die again. Most people get their horns during their trial. In fact, all people with horns get them during their trial, except Loki, since most shamans are granted their staff just for getting naked with someone after their apprenticeship is complete. 

He's never understood that. Why become a shaman, if not to wield your focus and drive to the benefit of the people? And then why divide your focus with something so tawdry as sex? Supposedly it connects you to the land in some mystical way, but Loki is no stranger to the mystical arts, and it's never had the faintest flavour in common with the leering jocularity of his age-cohorts as they fall into bed with one another. In a spirit of humility he has taken a lover himself a few times, just in case, but found no particular mystical benefit to the practice, certainly nothing to recommend the inconvenience and entanglement of it all. 

But dying, now. Dying was easy. Dying was simple. Dying was... clean. Chumming around naked, squirting bodily fluids all over the place, exchanging emotional vulnerability with someone purely because they look pleasant in the sauna... no thank you. Loki can barely tolerate the company of the elders, who at least have the learning to keep up with his conversation. His... peers... if you want to call them that, the pool of seekers of an age considered suitable for him to partner with... Well. He has yet to meet one he'd attend a poetry recital with, never mind bare his soul to. Yet if he bedded some lad or maiden purely to fulfill tradition, how could such falsity connect him to the land? The spirits of the land value authenticity, genuineness, purity of spirit and will. He guessed that, before, and now, returned from two-fold death, he _knows_ it. He is unmatched, but where the council sees that as a failing, he knows it for a compliment. He is enough, by himself.

But the council being what it was, he had to earn his horns before his staff. The presence on the other side had felt amused at this when it/they greeted Loki on the far side of his death. "You are all out of order, little goat!" they/it had thought or said or sang at him. The details are hazy in memory; the walls between all these things are thinner there. "Are you confused?" they had queried, and determined not to fail, not to be rebuffed, he had killed himself anew, despite already being dead. He had felt a bit foolish about this in the moment, but also rather impressed with himself, and it seemed the presence was too, for soon enough he was hauling breath into heaving lungs again, back in Life, head heavy with two sets of horns. "If you want so much to be marked, little goat, we will mark you much!" If it was a rebuke, it was delivered with laughter and joy, so Loki had lain back until the rhythm of breathing and the beating of a heart felt normal again, then urged his neck to grow strong to support his new burdens and arisen to go wake the Council of Nine. Surely they could not deny him now.

And they had not.

But now his trial is before him, and he is determined not just to gain his mastery and become a full shaman, but to redeem his family's name from the shame his father had brought upon it by breaking the heart of Jotunheim. Not all trials demand death, but surely one with such weight attached to it will demand a heavy sacrifice in balance. And what greater sacrifice than death? 3 is a heavy number, a sacred number; maybe that's why he was allowed to die twice, to make this count more.

It doesn't quite ring true, but he can't put his finger on the wrongness. He runs his mind over all the seams and edges of the idea and they run smooth back to their beginning. It's time to stop questioning and start walking his path.

Very literally walking his path, to begin with. Mother Hetchel wakes him the next morning, shares his morning tea, and then takes on her Aspect to give him his formal charge: "Walk to the north-west; your fate will meet you on your path," she intones in her bone-vibrating ritual voice.

Loki waits, but that's it, that's the whole charge. Hetchel raises an eyebrow and makes a shooing gesture with one hand; Loki ties his healer's kit in to a cloth bindle and hangs it from his staff, and then... starts walking. North-west. Very well.

=====

He is three leagues into his quest and starting to think it will be a trial of his feet alone when his promised fate meets him on his path. Or rather, when he nearly trips over his promised fate. His promised fate turns out to be a very handsome, very frozen young man, dressed in skimpy but sumptuous robes entirely unsuited for the frosty landscape. A golden circlet lies on the snow beside him. Blue lines trace over his skin, glowing faintly, but if they are some kind of magic protection, they are doing nothing to save the man from frostbite; the flesh of his slender hands and feet is already dangerously close to dead. If not from the cold, then certainly from the enormous bleeding rent in his chest that is evident when Loki lifts the edge of his cloak.

Well, this is certainly a riddle.

Loki grins. He does like riddles.

First things first. Loki unfocuses his eyes and thinks of tree branches interlaced, of spider webs, and plunges his hands down upon the man's chest. The torn flesh begins to knit itself; Loki turns his thoughts now to streams of water flowing smoothly, guiding the blood vessels within to reconnect without flaw or false turns. Absent Casket of Winter, but the damage is severe. Loki finds himself guiding not just the connection of veins and arteries, but rebuilding half the man's heart, whistling up a sacred wind to keep the essence of the air flowing through his blood while he works, until his battered heart and lungs can resume the task.

At last he's stable enough to consider moving, and Loki now is tired enough to want shelter on his own account. He gathers the man up in his arms, hanging the golden circlet jauntily on one prong of his staff, and closes his eyes, casting his mind about the nearby landscape in search of somewhere protected from the elem—aha! A cave opening less than half a mile away. How suspiciously convenient. Loki sighs and resigns himself to a steady diet of portents and omens until his trial is over. Subtlety is truly a lost art in these lands, he thinks primly at any listening gods or presences. Just in case.

The cave is beautiful, with walls of ice with artful cracks that seem to show pictures, or runes, or symbols, only to shift away when you gaze at them too long, twinkling merrily. The whole cavern seems lit from within, a soft glowing light suffusing the chamber with no obvious source. The ground is soft, and what looks like a dusting of snow is instead warm and yielding. Any remaining doubt he had that this is a Questing Ground, capital Q capital G, is dispelled by the cushy pseudo-snow. He sets the man down gently and starts a fire anyway; the faux-snow is plenty to keep Loki, with frost giant blood in his veins, comfortable, but he's not sure it will be enough to warm a body as ravaged by the cold as this poor fellow's is.

The man groans softly. He doesn't wake, but Loki is encouraged by this sign of life. Whatever the blue sigils are, they aren't an enchanted stasis, at least. He decides to treat for normal frostbite until he finds evidence to suggest otherwise. He takes an appropriate heating unguent from his bindle and rubs it into the man's hands and feet, whistling healing spells into them as he works. The pallor and stiffness begin to fade from them, but the man's core is still dangerously chill, even next to the fire.

Loki sighs heavily. He is going to need to warm him more... personally. "I suppose this is meant to be hilarious," he says loudly. If the gods aren't going to be subtle, why should he? He sets his staff aside and neatly disrobes, then strips the man out of his fraying robes. He tucks himself around his body and settles his own cloak over them both as a blanket, and whistles warmth from the fire over to it for good measure. He places his hand over the man's heart and concentrates, listening and urging it to match the beat of his own heart, to learn and share the warmth of his own body. He lets himself drift off into a half-sleep, half-trance. This will take some time.

=====

The last thing Tony remembered was Prince Tiberius laughing as he shoved him through... a portal? Tiberius was as hopeless at magic as he was at mechanics as he was at... basically everything except poison and being an asshole, really. Where had he scraped up a _portal_ from? But then everything was ice and death and oh yeah, poison, and Tony knew no more, as the bards like to say. The bards didn't mention how much of a pounding headache this involved. He was pretty sure it was an outdoors kind of icy death, though, while now he seems to be in a cave or a church or something. Very sparkly and very indoors, anyway. He does not remember anything about how he got here. 

It might have something to do with the naked guy snuggling him, of course. Tony runs a finger along naked guy's toned arms appreciatively. The super cute naked guy snuggling him. The super cute, _blue_ naked guy snuggling him. Well, Tony's always been open-minded. Yeah... open...

Tony falls asleep again, apparently, because the next clear thought he has finds him alone under a cloak, staring up at a sparkling, icy surface overhead, the smell of something herbal and pungent tickling at his nose. Was that blue cutie a hallucination? He stretches his arms up and blue lines glowing on them arrest his glance. Oh that's... that's not good. Either the hallucinating himself up a blue cutie or the glowing veins thing. He's a little foggy feeling still, but he knows that one. Palladine root poisoning. 

The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupts his gloomy realizations and Tony's head whips around—ow, ow, ow, Forge God's HAMMER, he still has a headache, such a headache—and oh, okay, blue cutie-pie was not a hallucination, because that is definitely a blue-skinned man sitting at the fire. A blue-skinned man with horns. Two sets of horns. "Well that is just gratuitous," mutters Tony. 

"Yes, a pleasure to meet you too, my name is Loki, I saved your life, you're welcome, no, no, please stop your effusive praise and thanks, I'm terribly modest."

There is a pointed silence here. Tony blinks, and then his brain wakes up a bit more. "Ah, right! Right. Loki. Good man. Thanks for um..." Saving his life is not quite apropos, going by the blue veins, but he is considerably less of an icicle than his projections earlier in the day? What day is it? Tony is a bit dizzy.

Tony is lying down again, that happened at some point, and the blue man... Loki. Loki is cradling his head, trying to coax him to sip something from a spoon. "Nnnghh?" inquires Tony articulately.

"Drink up, traveller. My bedside manner aside, I assure you I am indeed a healer."

"'M not a traveller. Tony. I'm Tony-o. Prince Antonio the... Tony."

"I see," agrees Loki pleasantly, taking advantage of Tony's open mouth to jam the spoon in and then press his jaw closed with a slender but strong finger.

"MNGHRHGHGH!" 

"Is that so."

Tony swallows, bowing to the power dynamics of this situation, and Loki releases his jaw.

"Now sleep."

Tony is not sleepy. Tony is PISSED. Tony wants some exposition, nay, some informed consent! Tony is... Tony is sleeping now.

=====

Everything is less blurry when he wakes up next. Loki is dozing next to the fire, one hand on Tony's ankle. Tony carefully sits up, trying not to move his leg, but doesn't entirely succeed, and Loki stirs too, sits up and gives Tony a piercing once-over that makes him feel naked. Wait, he is naked. Tony tugs the cloak he's been using as a blanket a little higher up his hip in the interest of discretion.

Loki tilts his head appraisingly. "And are you lucid this time?"

Tony strokes his chin, pretending to consider. "Well, I won't claim to be at my absolute intellectual peak, but—"

Loki laughs. "Close enough. Come, I've dried your garb, such as it is, and there's a bowl of stew for you when you're ready. Nothing too exciting, I'm afraid, traditional trial fare is rather ascetic."

Trial? Is he on trial? Tony focuses on the garb part and eagerly reaches for the pile of his clothing, only to find it rather the worse for wear. His points and hose are utterly unsalvageable; his tunic and undershirt have huge rents in them, and his fur cloak, though mostly intact, is stained with blood and has a huge ragged tear right over... Tony's hand scrabbles down his chest and he finds a matching wound, a huge cratered spiderweb of scar tissue. He's never seen it before, yet it looks long-healed, excepting the blue veins of the palladine poison lacing through it. This must have taken months to heal to this point. 

"How long have I been here?" Tony asks, clothing forgotten.

"Just the one night, fear not."

"But this..."

Loki turns smugly to stirring the stew he is reheating in a tiny but well-made pot. "As I said. I am a healer."

Tony raises his eyebrows. "Well you could show a few tricks to the Vanir healers, I'd say."

Loki nods. "Yes, I rather think I could." He pauses, apparently to drag some humility out of a long-forgotten pocket, and adds: "Ah, no doubt the reverse is true as well. The Vanir are renowned for their skill in matters of fertility, are they not? Here in Jotunheim the cold minds us more to preservation."

Fertility and poison, sure. "Jotunheim? Not Niflheim?"

Loki snorts. "Do I look so hellish to you? Jotunheim, yes. We share a climate with Niflheim but little else, I am happy to say."

"I thought Jotunheim was where the giants lived."

Loki sighs. "It's more of a... spiritual gigantism in some of us."

Tony peers at Loki's slim form suspiciously. Well, he is taller than Tony, at least. "Well. Ah. Thank you. For the way I'm no longer a torus gushing blood. At least I assume that's what happened." 

"You don't remember how you came to be gored and dumped in the ice?"

"Not... as such, no. Although I can guess." Tony clouds up and takes a moment to fashion a loin cloth from the remains of his tunic. The fire has warmed the small chamber up enough that he can forgo the disturbingly bloody fur for now. "I... think I mentioned I was a prince? Did that..."

"You did, yes, though I must confess I did not place too much weight on what you said in your delirium." 

"Well that part was true. Not like, an important prince. More of a spare, technically-but-not-usefully-a-prince kind of prince. Like, 37th in line to the throne kind of a prince." He pauses. "Vanaheim's system of nobility has maybe too many princes, if you ask me, not that anyone would."

Loki digests this social commentary placidly. "And is your name indeed, ah, Tonio?"

"Tony. Well Antonio if you want to get all formal, but—Tony, please."

"Tony. Very well. So you are a minor prince. And this is a hazardous profession, is it?"

Tony barks out a bitter laugh. "Apparently. I don't follow the politics very well—my father despairs of me—but one of my cousins burst into my workshop the other night, and then, well, here I am."

"Your own cousin?"

"Oh god yes. The court is teeming with my relations, and the general feeling is the fewer relations, the better. Everyone wants to climb closer to the throne, not that the king seems to enjoy it very much if you ask me."

"Everyone but you."

"Basically. I don't want to rule anything. I just want to build things. But it doesn't matter if I want it or not. My being alive is a threat. Or at least Ty sure seemed to think so, going by how happy he looked about shoving my almost-corpse through a portal." Tony huffs. "I bet he thought it was going to Niflheim too. I hope he way overpaid for it, that bastard."

"Well. Thank you for that horrifying little glimpse into your culture." Loki hands over the bowl of stew and Tony tucks in to it. It is indeed very bland, meatless and with nothing identifiable as any specific vegetable, but he finds himself scraping the bottom of the bowl before he knows it; he is famished. Healing a giant hole in your chest takes it out of a fellow, it seems. Loki refills his bowl and Tony eats this one a little more slowly.

"So, how about you? Any horrifying cultural tales to impart?"

"Mm. Well, I am a frost giant, as we discussed, and a shaman."

"And a healer. Or are those the same?"

"Not always, but in my case, yes. Not all my healing is magical or spiritual; not all my magic is healing. But there is not really a firm border between the two."

"And you were out freelance-healing when you found me, I guess?"

"I am on my trial. The final stage of a shaman's becoming. The gods will set me a test, or a task, and I will fulfill it, or fail."

Tony looks over at him nervously. "I didn't screw that up, did I? I mean, will the trial fairies still visit you now?"

"The... trial fairies." Loki looks deeply unimpressed by this.

Tony waves a hand. "Look, spiritual stuff isn't really my forte. The... testy gods? Did I uh." He pauses, then finishes in a small voice. "Did I wreck it?" His father's voice echoes in his mind. _Gods above and below, Antonio, can't you do anything right? At least your mother isn't alive to see what a screw-up you turned out to be._ He shakes his head out. Not now, Tones. Enough problems here and now without inviting Howard in.

But Loki just laughs. Oh. Well that's alright then. "The gods are not so fragile as that! No, Tony, I think you are probably part of my testing."

Tony fingers the scar tissue on his chest self-consciously. "So I was a final exam in healing?" Should he mention the poison? Is he the living embodiment of a trick question on Loki's test? This is some cosmic punishment for telling too many riddles as a child, he just knows it. Maybe also as an adult. Look, riddles are great.

"Hm? No, no, I passed as a healer long since. Your little scrape was an incidental matter."

"My little...!" Tony looks sharply at Loki. Loki smirks. "You're teasing me."

Loki looks innocent. "I would never."

"Hmm."

Loki sighs and continues. "No, I think you're meant to tempt me."

"To... what?"

"In my culture, a shaman is expected to... couple, to forge a connection to the land through a physical connection with another soul. It is supposed to be a great source of stability and power." Loki sniffs. "I have never found it necessary, frankly."

"And I'm here to be your booty call at long last?"

Loki shakes his head violently. "NO."

Tony puts up his hands placatingly. "Sorry! Sorry! Vanaheim guy over here, y'know, fertility and all... that... shit, sorry."

"Peace, princeling, I mean you no insult. You are comely enough, to be sure."

"Gee, thanks."

"I simply have no intention of letting my trial be the act of bending me to the mold. It feels... wrong."

"Ohh. You're like one of the Apart."

"The what?"

"Back home. I mean, we're all about the fertility festivals and recreational field-fucking and so forth, but not everyone. Some of the priests hold themselves back. They stay chaste all their life, to like, concentrate their holy power."

"Ah. We have something like that too; there's a monastic tradition to the South, ascetics who deny the worldly pleasures. And common folk who simply have no interest, of course. But no, that is not my situation."

"Oh. So it's just me that feels wrong? Shoot, I—in Vanaheim, most people don't consider their partner's gender very relevant, I guess I just assumed—"

"Tony. Stop. It's not about you."

Tony sighs. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

Loki pinches the bridge of his nose. "No, I mean, you're... a very good temptation. In other circumstances I would strongly consider making an alliance."

"Is that what they call it here?" Tony waggles his eyebrows.

Loki looks to the ceiling as if it might help. The ceiling sparkles a bit. "I do take lovers from time to time. It is rare, I will grant. I find myself... choosier than most. My peers seem to fall in love and then into bed after the briefest acquaintance; I spend months or years cultivating a fellowship of respect before I would consider... Well. Let me say just that I value quickness of thought more than—" 

Loki flickers and in his place is an elderly woman. 

"—the particular shape—" 

The woman flickers and now there is a reindeer towering over Tony. 

"—that a person happens—" 

HOW IS THE REINDEER TALKING. But it flickers again, and Loki is back. 

"—to be wearing."

"That's very open-minded of you," Tony manages. He is feeling proud of himself for not dropping his bowl of stew. 

Loki looks slightly disappointed. 

"Sorry, should I clap?" Loki's not the only one who can tease here. Tony can nonchalant a normally-calm person to a towering fury from a standing start in under thirty seconds when he's in top form.

Loki waves this off. "No, no, I just expected you to be at least a little taken aback."

"It was very impressive! Great timing." 

"Hmm. Thank you, I suppose."

"So you aren't against smooching, but it's also not me, but we still can't..."

"No. At least not... look. I have spent the whole of my life and training seeking the source of my power within myself. I earned my horns without a partner, the first Jotun to do so in our history as far as I can tell, because it felt right to do it alone. And the gods agreed, or I would never have returned alive. Why would they do that, only to make my trial simply to turn about and seek a partner?"

"That does seem aesthetically incompatible."

"THANK YOU! Yes."

"But you said you think I'm here to tempt you?"

"Mm, yes, but I don't think I'm supposed to give in. I think there is a deeper layer to be found. When you're well enough, we can return to the village and I will meditate on it."

Tony digests this thoughtfully, then holds up a finger. "One question."

"Yes?"

"How do we return to your village? Is there a secret passage or something?"

"What? We go through..." Loki trails off, looking around the cavern seriously for the first time since waking. The cavern entrance is gone; the walls, sparkling lit panels of ice, surround them on all sides. "Very funny," he murmurs. "Quite hilarious. I may expire of mirth."

"No secret passage, huh."

"No," says Loki curtly, turning to his bindle and untying it, sorting briskly through the contents.

"So! Don't suppose you have a Hnefatafl board in that bag of yours?"

"Do you know, I seem to have inadvertently left all my bulky multi-player gaming boards out of my kit of sacred supplies for my solo spiritual trial," Loki replies dryly.

"Just as well for you. I don't want to brag, but I'm something of a Hnefatafl prodigy."

"You may occupy yourself in carving a set out of yonder ice if you wish; I will indulge you when I'm done meditating." Loki begins pulling out stones marked with runes and a bundle of herbs tied with a red string, which he tosses in the fire. 

"How long will that take?" Tony asks, a bit distracted by how the fire's flames are now a pale blue. What herb could possibly burn that hot? That would be amazing for metalwork.

"Oh, no more than 3 or 4 days, I'm sure."

Tony looks up. "You're joking, right?"

Loki ignores him and continues setting up his stones and chanting over the fire.

"Loki?"

But Loki has fallen into a trance.

======

Loki has always found it easy to pierce the veil, to sink into a working trance and connect to the source of his magic and to seek omens of guidance. 

"Tea?"

He's used to the omens being a little less chatty, though.

He's dressed in an unfamiliar costume, seated at an Asgard-style banquet table instead of a sensible cushion on the floor. Bodil is pouring him a cup of tea from a needlessly fussy porcelain confection that Bodil would never actually deign to—

"Who are you, really?" asks Loki.

Bodil looks up, but his eyes aren't the piercing red of his healing master. Instead they are... a blankness, not white or black but a place he cannot focus on, every colour and none. Loki bows his head after a moment, and when he looks up, the emissary-spirit is not wearing Bodil's shape any more.

"Does this shape suit your taste better, child?" asks Laufey. But Loki's father is dead, and the world is better for it, as far as Loki is concerned. And while death is no bar for a trance sending, Loki's father was definitely not of a spiritual bent to impart wisdom from beyond the grave to his child. So this, this isn't—

"It does not, emissary," he replies, bowing his head again, though whether to avoid the unsettling eyes or merely his father's image he is not sure. 

A flicker of light and the spirit's form is changed again, now a horse placidly gazing at Loki over the banquet table. The tea cup has moved over in front of Loki along with the change. "Such a polite child! I trust then that this more neutral shape will suffice."

"Yes, and I thank you." Loki sips his tea. The horse's eyes, set in the sides of its head as they are rather than facing directly at him, are easier to bear looking at than Bodil's or Laufey's.

"So polite," the horse repeats. "And yet so brazen."

Loki hums inquiringly around his tea.

"You are here to reject your trial, are you not?"

Loki sets down his tea, chagrined. "Then he is to be my trial? I thought..."

"Does it lay you so low, to have to be vulnerable to another?"

Loki harrumphs. "I am proud, it is true, honoured one. But this is not... not just about my ego."

"Then what is in your heart, little one?" 

Loki bristles a little at the sweetnames the spirit keeps using, but he supposes to a supernatural creature, or god, or whatever manner of ethereal intermediary he is speaking to, he must seem very young indeed. "A person's trial is a turning point, a rebirth, a clearing away of the old."

"And you do not wish your loneliness to be cleared away?"

"I'm not lonely!" bursts out Loki. "I beg your pardon," he follows quickly, slightly horrified to sound so whiny in front of a spirit. The horse nickers softly, amused perhaps. "I am not opposed to the comfort of another, but nor do I thirst after it. I am just... puzzled to find someone would judge me and decide that _that_ is the quality in my past that needs tidying."

The horse flickers and takes Laufey's form again. "Loki, son of Laufey. You do not bear the responsibility for your father's sin."

Loki looks up, forcing himself to hold Laufey-but-not-Laufey's gaze. "I know it, and neither would I accept it were you to thrust it upon me. But! But." He holds out a finger and pauses. Laufey flickers and becomes the horse again. "Ah, my thanks. It is not my sin, I know this. And yet... I am his son. Is it not my right to redeem his foul action?" He looks intently up at the horse. "The land suffers for it. The people suffer. Someone must repair the damage he wrought, and here am I, blood of his blood, seeking a trial to become a true servant of the land and the people. If not I, then who?"

The horse considers him. "And you think yourself fit to judge who may best undertake this work? You, youngling?"

Loki closes his eyes. "I am as a tent-beetle is to a frost giant in comparison to you, in span, in wisdom, in perspective. And a beetle cannot move the stars, but it can see them, and dream. I do not know all that you know." Loki opens his eyes and looks up, fierce. "But I know some things well. That I am strong in magic, perhaps the strongest of my people. That I am a gifted healer, and that I am called to heal, and not just the body. And that there is no one in all of Jotunheim who can feel as betrayed by Laufey's sin or as determined to repair it as I am. If it is your judgement that I am unfit for this task, I will accept it and turn from this path. But if I can serve, if there is even a chance that I may serve, then emissary, let me try. Let me spend my life for my people, and not in the service of dipping my wick in the wax."

The horse laughs. "I may regret naming you polite, frostling! Strong or no, I can tell you that you are the first of your kind to ever include a jest about your penis in a petition to the gods."

Loki examines his nails. "Fortune favours the bold, so they say."

The horse huffs its amusement, then looks at him a little sadly. Loki is not entirely sure how he can tell the horse is sad, but— "And do you mean to spend your life in this task, as you say?"

"I meant that more metaphorically, but if that is the cost..." Loki concentrates, and his antlers and ram's horns begin to glow with an inner light, his eyes turning red from rim to rim and shining with all the earnestness in his hidden heart. "...then I am prepared to pay it. As I think you well know." His horns flare a bit with light at this. No point in being subtle now.

"Hmph!" The horse snorts and then flicks its head high, suffused with a brilliant light on all sides. Loki flinches and cringes back from it, only to find the table and tea gone, the horse gone, and himself, nude, afloat in the light. His eyes are open, if he even has eyes in this place of pure energy; his body feels slightly unreal in this moment. 

"We accept your petition, Loki, son of Laufey," the light pronounces commandingly, the words penetrating to the core of him, feeling like they are being inscribed on the secret walls of his heart. "We will set you a trial with tasks three, and you may redeem your father's sin if you can." 

"Th-thank you, noble ones," Loki manages.

"But know this: you may need your candle lit before you are through."

There is a pff! sound, as of a candle being blown out, and Loki is abruptly awake in his own body, back in the cave. Did... did the gods just one-up his dick joke? 

"Loki! You're back." Tony is sitting cross-legged a few feet away, fiddling with something metal. "That was only a few hours, so I'm not done the whole set." He sets the metal item down and it's a tiny Hnefatafl soldier. On further inspection, the stew pot is found to be full of molten... tin, perhaps?

"I see you've converted my mess kit to a smeltery in my absence."

"Oh, no, not smelting, just melting. It was already smelted into the alloy I wanted, I just used your super-duper herb fire, neat trick by the way, to melt down the pewter from my cloak's clasp to make them." He frowns. "Taking forever, though, I have to impress a new mold for each one because the ice melts as soon as I pour them. I, ah, may have stolen one of your extra rune-y rocks to use as a hammer for touch-ups."

Loki stifles a smile and looks solemnly into the pot. "Pewter? Not tin, then."

"Mostly tin! Pewter is tin, a hint of antimony, and uh... lead." Tony starts brightly and then falters. "We ah, probably shouldn't eat out of that now, now that I think of it."

Loki loses his grip and bursts out with a peal of delighted laughter. "I think I can contrive to clean it with a little kitchen magic, never fear. Not that it wouldn't serve you right to subsist on hardtack for the rest of the trial after coating my only pot with lead."

"Oh! Good. And um. Sorry? You said you were going to be days, and I thought probably it was a joke, but then, well, I get bored very easily." Tony pauses, looking off into the distance. "Very, very easily." He shakes himself. "And I couldn't stop looking at your neat fire, and well, one thing led to another, heh, led to? Lead? Get it?" 

Loki is a bit spun around trying to follow Tony down this breakneck set of verbal switchbacks, but he catches up after a moment and says "Yes, yes, I get it," unable to keep his good cheer out of his delivery.

Tony notices right away, damn him. "Well someone's in a better mood! Good meditating? Lots of... I don't know, calmness points or whatever?"

Loki smiles and waves a hand over the pot and the campfire. The blue flames disappear, the pot is clean and empty, and a lump of metal sits beside it in a neat cube. "Something like that. I sorted out my trial."

Tony is distracted by the metal cube, tossing it from hand to hand. "Oh yeah?"

"Indeed," says Loki, reaching out to take the cube from him, tucking it and the pot and, after a moment of consideration, the stack of little Hnefatafl figures back among his other possessions. He sweeps his runestone layout in as well, ties the bindle up and stands, attaching it to his staff. "As you can see, a way forward has appeared." He gestures behind Tony's head. Tony turns around and gasps an "Oh!" as he sees the opening to a downward sloping tunnel behind him, complete with two torches in decorative sconces framing it. 

"The torches are a nice touch," says Tony after a beat.

"Aren't they? Come on, up you get."

"So I'm coming along on your trial?"

Loki shoots him an apologetic glance. "I'm afraid there's just the one direction open to us at the moment." 

But Tony just nods, satisfied, and hops up, settling his somewhat bedraggled cloak—which is now spattered with metal droplets—about his shoulders, tying it shut with the frayed edges of cord that presumably used to attach to the clasp. He spares a glance to the corner where the golden circlet Loki found him with is lying, then resolutely snaps his gaze back to Loki, rejecting it. "Good. Wouldn't miss it."

Well. Loki hopes Tony doesn't come to regret that statement. But really, there isn't another choice. Hefting his staff to light the way, he strides forth into the passage. 

=====

Tony has to step lively to keep up with Loki's long strides, but he feels oddly energetic for a poisoned man recovering from having his heart aerated percussively. "Sooooo, what's your trial gonna be?"

"I don't know."

"No clues? Nothing at all?"

They come to a branch in the trail; Loki confidently takes the left one and carries on. "There will be three tasks I must face. And they will be significant; they must be to equal the sin I seek to redress."

"Sin! You saucy thing."

"Hmph. Not my sin." Loki pauses his swift walking to let Tony catch up from where he was peering down the branch they didn't take. "Goodness but you're a curious thing."

Tony beams. Loki lets it go and starts walking again.

"So whose sin are we, uh, expiating today?"

"My father's. He broke Jotunheim."

"Wow, and I thought I had daddy issues."

Loki looks over at him sharply, but Tony isn't looking; instead he's scurried a bit ahead to poke a little rock outcropping before continuing on. 

"So how do you... break a whole realm?"

Loki sighs. "He lost our most precious and sacred artifact, the Casket of Ancient Winters, in a fruitless battle with Asgard."

"And this Casket was holding the place up?"

"Not exactly. But it was, hmm, how to explain. It was the heart of our power. It should have stayed in the keeping of the Council of Nine, but Laufey brought it forth, so that he could channel that power to smite his foes."

"Smiting didn't go so hot, I guess?"

"The Casket was never meant for such things. It is the life of our people, not a machine of war. And indeed Asgard triumphed in despite of the Casket's aid, and they took it from him as a spoil of war." Loki looks conflicted. "To his credit, my father begged them to leave it, to take him as a hostage in its place. But they took him and the Casket both, and if he lives or dies now I know not. Nor care," he finishes grimly.

"Yikes."

"You must think me cold. But I was but an infant when this happened. I never knew my father save through the destruction he wrought. Without the Casket, we are weakened. Our crops grow with less vigour. Fewer children are born."

"I do think you're cold, but just because you're _literally a frost giant_." Tony continues more quietly, spreading a hand over the blue-streaked mess of scars on his chest. "Believe me, I understand that family can be complicated."

"Ah. Yes. I suppose you must."

The passage has been winding more and more as they descend, and now they come to a sharp corner, and there, blocking the way further, is an open portal.

"Shit!" blurts out Tony, stopping suddenly just short of careening through it. Loki steadies his shoulder. Tony has to resist the urge to nuzzle the hand with his cheek. Down, boy. "Does _this_ one go to Niflheim?"

"No..." murmurs Loki. "No, this one goes to the vaults of Asgard."

"The vaults of..." Tony peers through the portal. "Is that..."

"The Casket of Ancient Winters, yes." Loki's gaze is locked on the little box, an iron frame enclosing a pulsing blue core.

"Well that was easy," remarks Tony.

"Too easy," say Tony and Loki in unison. Tony grins. Loki raises a single eyebrow archly before giving in and letting a small smile play across his lips. 

"Figure there would be a regiment of Asgard's finest on the far side?" asks Tony.

"No... no, I think it is as we see it, a chance to simply take back the casket."

"So..."

"So, that would solve our problems for a short time, until Asgard discovered the theft and came to us with suit of war again, this time finding us diminished in number and strength. No. This is not the way." 

Loki draws himself up to his full height, slipping the bindle off his staff to hand to Tony. He holds his staff aloft and begins intoning in a language Tony doesn't recognize, but he gets the feeling he is not the target audience at the moment. The words take on a sing-song quality, and points of light appear around the portal each time he changes pitch. They begin to dart and weave around it like they're winding it in yarn. The portal is buried under the trails of lights, and then abruptly the whole thing vanishes, leaving just the empty corridor of their path behind.

"Nice!"

"Thank you. Well, that's one task down. Here, give me the... what have you done to my bindle?"

Tony looks sheepish, a lifetime of _Stop fiddling with that, Tony!_ echoing in his mind. "I noticed it was kind of making your stride lopsided? I retied it so it has straps, you can carry it on your back and take the weight on your legs instead of straining your wrist holding the staff upright with extra weight on it."

Loki blinks.

Tony decides that's not a no and sets about putting the ex-bindle, now-backpack on Loki's shoulders. "Why were you carrying it like that, anyway? That can't be comfortable."

"It's traditional," says Loki, nevertheless placidly letting Tony slip the straps over his arms.

"Ah, and you're a rigid traditionalist. Like how you ditched the coupling business."

"Yes, thank you, I see your cunningly hidden point, princeling."

"Could you not? Tony. It's Tony." Tony is pretty sure he's not going to live long enough to return to Vanaheim, and he's damned if he'll waste a single minute of the time he has left bowing to the ridiculous royal nonsense of the Vanir court. Prince Antonio is no more. Tony, magical frosty quest sidekick, at your service. And possibly Tony, Hnefatafl shark, if they get any downtime. He saw Loki pocket the playing pieces, and they can draw a board on the ground, probably.

"Tony," repeats Loki, and then, hesitantly, "Tony, thank you. This is indeed much easier to bear."

"Hey, what are sidekicks for?" replies Tony cheerfully.

=====

They break for supper, more stew in the (lead-free) pot, warmed over a small fire of normal campfire temperature, somewhat to Tony's disappointment. Super-fire herbs are apparently only for serious meditation business. 

Loki demurs at the offer of a quick game of Hnefatafl for dessert, in favour of continuing their march. 

Another hour later, the path widens, opening on to an enormous echoing chamber of dark rock. Bones are strewn over the floor haphazardly. Tony wanders over to inspect the nearest pile, poking them gingerly with his toe. He hops back abruptly. "I think these are people bones," he half-shrieks. He's not even ashamed. People bones are absolutely 100% shriek-worthy.

"Perhaps," allows Loki. "But we are in an enchanted space. All may not be as it seems."

"Gah, I hope you're right." Tony tucks himself close by Loki's side on the side the staff isn't, which not coincidentally is also the side furthest from the bones he poked. Tony has been wishing he still had shoes for a significant portion of their extended walking, but now he really, really wishes he still had shoes. Couldn't Tiberius have murdered him when he was properly dressed? He supposes he should be grateful for his cloak at least, although he's pretty sure Ty just wrapped him in it to keep the blood off his hands while he threw him through the portal. 

A loud growl echoes through the chamber. Tony makes a "meep!" sound and shuffles closer still; Loki absently puts an arm around him, his attention on scanning the room for the source of the sound.

This becomes easily evident in a moment as an enormous scaly beast hoves into view, half again as tall as a horse, not counting the truly impressive rack of antlers, and with teeth for miles. God, is that another mouth with extra teeth? Tony is having deep regrets about not insisting on the hnefatafl after dinner, because things are not looking great for his immediate entertainment prospects. Tony regards any situation where he is in serious danger of wetting himself as a big NOPE on the enjoyment scale.

Tony is... maybe freaking out a bit right now. Loki squeezes his shoulder reassuringly, but then he _lets go_ and Loki _walks toward_ the giant slavering toothbeast from Hel's own menagerie and TONY IS NOT OKAY WITH ANY OF THIS.

Tony is frozen in place, watching Loki walk to his doom. Not just figuratively, either. Tony's not sure if his nerve would have held for a dash out to save Loki from himself, but as it happens, his feet are literally encased in ice, sticking him to the floor. What is going ON?

Tony looks up from his frozen feet back at Loki, who is, to his surprise, still decidedly uneaten. Who is, in point of fact... skritching the beast under its chin? One of its chins. The beast, which is... 

"Is it PURRING?!" squawks Tony.

"Who's a sweet little bilgesnipe! Is it you!"

"LOKI!"

"Just a moment!"

"But..." Tony decides he doesn't actually have any pressing arguments to put forth and shuts up. Loki continues to dote on the bilgesnipe, reaching up to use his staff to scratch it in an awkward spot on top of its head. The bilgesnipe rolls over, delirious with pleasure, purring more and more loudly. 

"Huh," manages Tony, then trips over his frozen feet and falls back on his ass.

"Oh! Sorry, sorry," shouts Loki, wiggling his fingers in Tony's direction. The ice vanishes. Tony walks over to Loki and the bilgesnipe. Very, very slowly. He pauses a few yards back. The bilgesnipe is chewing on... 

"Is that my cloak?" Yikes, Tony didn't even notice Loki taking it. In his defense, GIANT TOOTH MONSTER.

"Ah, yes, sorry. They just love blood."

Oh well. The cloak was kind of on its last legs anyway after all the stabby stabby portal portal action it had seen. "Sooo... it's friendly?" _In a blood-chewing kind of way?_ appends Tony mentally.

"Mm, for the moment at least." says Loki, patting the beast's belly. 

"What did you call it?"

"Hm? Oh, a bilgesnipe. You don't have them in Vanaheim?"

"I don't think so. I mean, certainly not in the palace?"

"Ah, well."

"That's a lot of teeth for a friendly animal."

"Oh, no, they're ferocious. Eat babies right out of a mother's arms. Can't turn your back on a bilgesnipe." Loki turns his back on the bilgesnipe as he delivers this address to Tony. 

Tony sputters a bit. "But it's... you're..."

Loki returns to his skritching. "Ah, well. Before I was apprenticed to my healing master, I undertook some study on my own, healing creatures in the hinterlands. Birds and little foxes and the like. At first."

"Uh huh. At first."

"When that wasn't challenging enough, I ah, expanded my scope."

"To bilgesnipes."

"...to bilgesnipes, yes. And polar bears. Et cetera."

Tony decides not to ask what et cetera covers. Bilgesnipes have expanded his zoological horizons quite enough for one day, thank you.

"It was what got me formally apprenticed, actually. Mother Hetchel, ah, one of the prominent shamans in my village. She caught me riding one and decided enough was enough, I needed some closer supervision, and that was that."

"I see," says Tony, faintly. "So is this one of the ones you healed?"

"Oh, I have no idea," says Loki. "They're fantastically stupid, this fellow wouldn't remember me if I'd raised him from an egg. But they're all itchy as anything, their skin grows so fast they're constantly shedding. It's disgusting, really. But it makes it easy to get them on your side if you know where to scratch."

"This is your second task, isn't it."

"We're in a magical cavern at the whim of capricious testing gods. What do you think."

"It wasn't really a question. More of a statement."

"Mm. Well. We'd better get moving; a connecting passage opened up yonder once this big pupper rolled over." Loki inclines his head toward the far wall, where there is indeed now an opening that wasn't there before.

"It doesn't really look big enough for uh, your new friend to fit through?"

Loki looks over at him, clearly surprised. "Lord of winters, why ever would I want it to fit?"

"It's not coming with us?"

"Are you mad? It's a bilgesnipe. It'll forget me about thirty seconds after I'm done scratching it. I'm going to wait until it dozes off a bit, and then you and I are going to run as fast as we can toward that opening."

Tony's eyes widen. He nods vigorously and shakes the last few icicles off his feet.

"Ah, sorry about the ice. I was afraid you'd wind up in biting range if it didn't notice the scratching right away."

"Biting range. Right. Okay. I'm done here? Done. I'll just be..." Tony waves at the passage and walks off. Loki waves absently and continues to scratch the scaly, purring mountain of bilgesnipe. Tony carries on down the passage and around a corner for good measure, then waits nervously. A quarter of an hour or so later, Loki saunters up.

"Big guy's asleep?" asks Tony.

Loki grins and holds up one arm, sleeve completely torn off, a long, angry-looking cut stretching from elbow to shoulder. "Nope! No, I daresay he's quite awake."

"Loki!"

"Mm, would you be so kind as to take this bag off of me? I find myself in need of a salve, but my arm is a bit..."

Tony rushes over and carefully lifts the pack's straps off Loki's arms without touching the wound. 

"Under the pot there's a little jar of... yes, that's the one." Loki looks down at his garment and seems to give up on salvaging it; he rips the tunic off entirely and tosses it aside, then more carefully takes off his cloak and folds it. He peers awkwardly over his shoulder at his wound. 

"Want me to get that for you?"

"If you'd be so kind." 

Tony carefully dabs on the very medicinal-smelling ointment, trying to be as gentle as possible, though Loki still winces a few times. Well, it's a pretty big gash, what can you do.

Quite a bit, it turns out; by the time he gets down to the elbow, the section of the cut nearest the shoulder is already knitted together, looking almost completely healed. When Tony looks back down to the elbow it's nearly caught up. "Wow! You should sell this stuff."

"I do. Well. I give it to whoever is in need, and in turn I am entitled to a share of the tithe of food and goods made to the public purse. All the healers and shamans are supported so, so that they can work for the common good without worrying about farming or hunting on the side."

"Heh. I bet you'd do okay as a hunter, too, judging by old bilgey."

Loki sprouts a frown in distaste. "Bilgesnipe are... technically edible, but you'd have to be very, very hungry."

They rest for a short while, passing a water skin back and forth. Loki conjures a patch of ice, although not encasing any part of Tony this time, and then melts it with a gesture, a stream of water refilling the skin. Neat trick, although Tony wonders why Loki is doing it now when he'll just have to carry the water. Maybe that's also traditional. 

Tony's feet actually feel a little better for having been frozen; numb feels better than sore at this point. Still, he heaves a mighty sigh when they start walking, again, more, down this endless maze of twisty little passages, all alike. 

Well one passage. Anyway it's getting boring. And he's tired. And he's...

...back in the sparkly ice room they started the day in. 

"Was all that one big circle? We were going downhill the entire time. But this is... yeah, see, there are the molds from my casting, and there's my circlet. This is definitely the same room from before."

"Hmm," explains Loki unhelpfully.

Tony continues in, setting down the backpack, which he'd opted not to let Loki carry to spare his bilgesniped arm, no matter how healed it looked. Loki stops hmming and sets his staff down in turn, setting to the task of building a fire. They had supper hours ago, but Loki starts another pot of stew, and Tony realizes that he's more than hungry enough for it. Heck, maybe the earlier supper was actually lunch, who knows what time it is outside. Tony's not sure if Jotunheim is even on the same time-scheme as Vanaheim, for that matter. The connections between realms all involve rainbows or mystical starboats or such; Tony wouldn't be surprised if time shenanigans were part of the mix. Among the many, many reasons he had wished not to be a member of royalty, a major one was regret that he wasn't allowed to work at anything so "crude" as building starboats. His tinkering was tolerated so long as it was strictly confined to his workshop.

There's a bowl of stew in his hands; he doesn't remember when it got there. 

"Eat up, Tony, before you wind up face-down in your stew."

Tony gestures at Loki with his spoon. Well, the spoon; they only had one. Loki is using The Fork and eating out of a mortar, pestle set aside for mealtime. "You woun' let me faceplant in m'stew, would you?" he inquires sleepily. 

Loki doesn't answer right away, but gets up and sits behind him, stretching his long legs out beside him and drawing Tony into the circle of his arms. Presently Tony does nod off, and Loki sets the bowl and spoon aside, and settles his cloak over them both.

"No, Tony, I don't think I would." he whispers into Tony's hair. "I don't think I would." He sits awake for a long while while Tony sleeps against his chest. 

Thinking.

=====

Loki is pacing the icy sparkle-church room when Tony wakes up, though Tony is amused to find he's been tucked into the cloak on all sides like he's a wrapped solstice present. It takes him a moment to figure out how to wiggle loose. Loki is muttering to himself as he paces, and Tony gets as far as breakfasting on crackers from the pack—hopefully they were meant to be food and he didn't just eat, like, mystical oat bandages or something—and decides to risk burning a teeny weeny bit, hardly any, really, Loki probably won't notice, of the super-herb to make the fire hot enough to melt pewter again. He's cast the last few figures to complete his Hnefatafl set by the time Loki emerges from his cloud of broody stomping. Tony is engaged in trying to pour as much of the remaining pewter out of the pot as possible when Loki comes over and waves his hands. This time instead of a cube there's a thin metal rod; the pewter clasp has mostly been converted to wee soldiers. Tony warms it over the fire a bit and then twists it in to a tiny replica of Loki's staff, attaching it to one of the game pieces.

"Am I to be a soldier, now?" asks Loki, amused.

"I was thinking of some alternate rules, to spice things up. Game board with portals, maybe a bilgesnipe piece..." Tony trails off. "I had a lot of time to think about it while you were doing your pacing thing. You figure out whatever was on your mind?"

"I believe so, yes." replies Loki. "You will note that no entrance has appeared to our chamber."

"Kind of the opposite, like, where did the door we came in last night go?"

Loki waves this off. "Where has any of this come or gone? We are in a liminal space for the duration of the trial."

Tony shrugs. "Okay, sure. So... what now?"

"That is the matter that has occupied my contemplation. The third task must still be completed, and I was promised a chance to redeem my father's sin, so the task must accomplish this also. We have not been granted an egress, so the task must be within our measure in this chamber."

Tony's cheeks pink up a bit in pleasure at being casually included in "we" and "our" in Loki's reasoning. Loki is kind of stuck with him either way, but... it's just nice. To be inside his circle. 

Loki is still talking. Oops. Focus, Tony.

"...think it must be mine now to build a new Casket, or perhaps not an actual casket, but a new home for the heart of the Jotnar."

Tony perks up. "Oh! I can help!"

"Hm?"

"I mean, I don't know how to infuse a heart into something. Whatever that involves. But if you need to build an artifact to keep your glowy blue spirit mojo in, I bet I can come up with something."

Loki smiles. "Do you know, I believe you can."

Tony looks down at his Hnefatafl army. "Sorry guys, duty calls." He dumps them into the pot and gets to work.

=====

"Tony! Tony!" Loki is snapping his fingers in front of his face and Tony realizes he's dozed off. Oh, shit, the—but no, the armature is fine, and indeed has fully cooled in the time since Tony nodded off. "Tony?"

"I'm here! I'm awake, awake." 

"Mm. Take this."

Tony takes what's handed to him mechanically.

"Put it in your mouth."

What? Pu—oh. Crackers.

The return of blood sugar to Tony's life improves his thinking speed considerably and he sits up, then inches over to rest against Loki's side. Loki, in turn, is handling the armature reverently, running a lean finger along the spiral arms that enclose the empty centre, intricate pewter and gold vines twining around each other. This is a much better use of the gold than as a stupid tiara for a 37th-rate noble fop.

"If I had my workshop I'd add leaves, it's kind of rough-looking, but it should—"

Loki cuts him off with a finger against his lips. "Tony. It's beautiful."

Tony ducks his head. "Yeah? I mean, I still need to polish it."

Loki considers it, then closes his eyes and clasps both hands firmly around the frame, chanting softly under his breath. It glows briefly, and as the light fades it is replaced by a beautiful shine, the polished metal reflecting the sparkling ice walls and ceiling.

"I want ten of you for my workshop." declares Tony.

Loki chuckles. "Perhaps once this is over I will come visit it."

Tony presses his lips together and says nothing. Yeah that's not so much gonna happen. Even if Ty or some other murder-cousin-of-the-month wasn't there waiting to re-stab him, Tony's not anticipating needing more than ten fingers to number off his remaining days on Vanaheim. No, Jotunheim. Well, anywhere, really. 

He begins gloomily tracing one of the blue veins of palladine root poison on his arms. They're pretty, for something so sinister. Lighter than the deep blue of Loki's skin, or even the lighter marks of the mystic designs Loki bears. Tony hopes they're intentional marks, anyway, tattoos or some such. How ridiculous would it be if they were both rotting away with palladine toxin? But Loki's marks are less random in appearance, clearly placed with an artistic eye, no doubt in a way that has some arcane significance that Tony doesn't understand. And Loki's marks aren't spreading, the way Tony's are.

Distracted, he misses what Loki says next, but what Loki _does_ next is unmistakeable: a ball of light appears between his outstretched hands, at first white and then deepening to a rich, blue tone, pulsing as if to the beat of a heart. It hovers in place for a moment, then darts forward into the pewter armature. Loki makes a complicated series of passes with his hands, as if weaving on an invisible loom, and little panels of.. glass? No, ice—begin to form, enclosing the light and turning the frame in to a glowing lantern. Sweat is dripping off Loki's brow as he works, and it happens slowly, the growth almost imperceptible, but bit by bit the ice spreads up until it meets at the centre of each pane. With a heaving breath, Loki releases the light from his hands, and the artifact drops softly down on to the snow. Sort-of-snow. Tony is still not sure what the deal with the room-temperature snow in this place is. 

"Oh, wow. Loki, it's... it's beautiful."

Loki leans back, visibly exhausted. "Ah. Thank you. Though I think you are as much to blame for its beauty, my friend."

Tony flushes, but smiles proudly at Loki. "So is it... is it done? Is that the new heart?"

"No. What we have made so far is merely the vessel. But I have laid down... a nest of sorts, that will nurture and hold the heart of the Jotnar people. It remains to me to call the heart to a new home, and for that I will need to cross over to the spirit world."

"Oh. Cross over to the... right. How do you, uh. How do you do that?"

"Oh, it's quite simple. I die."

"..."

Loki sets about tidying his possessions while Tony chokes on this statement, and gets as far as getting out, holy shit, a big honking knife. It's gorgeous, Tony notes with an expert eye, the metalwork is exquisite, it's polished and very sharp, well-balanced if the way Loki handles it is any indication and "DID YOU SAY YOU DIE?!"

"Yes?"

"As in, death, like, you will be deceased."

Loki raises an eyebrow. "Is there some ambiguity in the meaning of the word in the dialect of Vanaheim?"

"There's... no... but... Loki!"

Loki raises both hands in an appeasing motion that might be more soothing if he wasn't still holding his FREAKING RITUAL SACRIFICE KNIFE. "Tony. It's quite all right. I've done it before."

"You're died before?!"

Loki nods serenely. "Twice, actually." He taps his antlers and then his ram's horns. "That's how one acquires these. You die, and place yourself in the hands of the gods. And if they decree it, you return, marked, and hopefully having conducted whatever affairs you needed to take care of in the spirit realm."

"And you've done this TWICE?"

"Well, one trip, but I died twice."

"You died twice. Of course you did."

"Tony—"

"What if they don't decree your return? What happens then?"

Loki spreads his hands out in a gesture of acceptance. "Then it is your time to die, and you remain on the other side."

"And you are OKAY WITH THAT?!" Tony is shouting. Tony is freaking out again. Good. THIS IS WHAT FREAKING OUT IS FOR.

Loki sets down the knife and grips Tony's shoulder. "Tony, do calm down. Breathe in. Breathe out."

Tony is vibrating with agitation, but tries, really tries for a minute, to obey, to breathe at a more reasonable pace, to—

"Every living thing has a time to die, Tony. If my life is the cost to free my people from my father's wrongdoing, then—"

Okay fuck breathing calmly, Tony is DONE with calm. "Then that's a TERRIBLE cost and your gods are ASSHOLES!"

Loki looks amused. "I am certain you will understand that as a shaman, that is not my point of view."

Tony waves his hands around. "But it's so... why would they..." He stops, tilting his head, attention caught by one of the blue marks on his hand. Oh. Oh HEY. "Loki," he says evenly.

"Tony," mimics Loki calmly.

"Do you, specifically, have to be the one who dies?"

"What? Tony, committing murder would hardly dispose the spirits to look favourably on my suit."

"No, no, but like. What if someone else were to volunteer?"

"Tony, what are you—"

Tony picks up the knife from where Loki had set it down. "Would it work?"

"Tony! Put that down this instant, you can't—"

"LOKI. Would. It. Work."

"I don't know! Probably! But I am not going to let you—"

"I'm dying anyway," blurts out Tony.

Loki stops mid-flail, and looks into Tony's eyes, horrified. "You're what?"

Tony swallows. "Dying. Me. It's happening."

"What are you talking about? You're quite hale. You're a young man. If you're worried about that"—Loki gestures at the cluster of scar tissue over Tony's heart—"I can assure you my repair was quite thorough."

"I'm sure it is! Just, there's the whole poison thing." Tony holds his arms out, palms up, displaying the crooks of his elbows where the blue trails of the palladine are particularly dense, trailing out from the veins in loopy, rather pretty designs. They almost look intentional; they have a pleasing symmetry to them that Tony would appreciate more if it weren't, you know, from a deadly poison.

Loki is frozen for a moment, all save his eyes, tracing the path of the blue trails. "These are not, then, decorative marks?" he inquires.

"Not so much, no."

"No, no, and they're spread since yesterday, haven't they." Loki is in motion now, his hand tracing over the diamond-esque marks the palladine has threaded through the scar tissue on his chest. "I would have remembered if it was this intricate here when I effected the repair. Hm!" His hands run over Tony's body, manipulating it briskly to expose more blue marks. He flips up Tony's loin cloth—

"Whoah, hey, hey! I thought you weren't in to that sort of—" But Loki is ignoring Tony's crotch, which Tony feels like he should be offended by, instead running a finger along his inner thigh, tracing a dense field of blue lines Tony hadn't actually noticed was there. 

"Following the femoral vein as well, I see, I—Tony, why didn't you say anything?"

Tony shuffles back a bit, tucking himself back under the loin cloth. "I don't know, I didn't want to... I mean, I've seen this before, you know? Palladine root isn't the fastest poison in the book, but it's pretty, well, reliable. There's a lot of poison in the Vanir courts, you get to know the main... anyway, that's not important. I didn't want to ruin my time with you. If that was all I was going to get. I wanted to just... enjoy you. You know?" Tony looks up at the end of this awkward disquisition, face red—well, red with blue stripy designs—but determined to meet Loki's eyes.

Loki looks back at him and takes his face gently between his hands.

"Tony. You idiot. What am I?"

"What? You're Loki."

"Not who. What am I."

"A... frost giant. Tall, blue, literally very horny, although not in the way that I wish you wer—"

Loki sighs. "I am a HEALER, Tony."

"Right. And a shaman. I noticed."

"A. Healer."

"Uh huh..."

Loki shakes him a bit. "I CAN HEAL THIS, YOU BUFFOON." 

"..."

"..."

"OHHHHH."

"Yes. Oh." Loki laughs a bit hysterically. "I can, and I will, before I go further with my trial."

Tony clouds up. "Your trial. But I still want—" 

Loki looks over sharply. "Want nothing. If you let yourself die of something I am perfectly capable of resolving, I will kill myself anyway, and then find you in the spirit realm, and then murder you again myself, rather more thoroughly than your lackwit cousin did, and... and... other things!" 

"Other things?"

"I don't know!" shouts Loki. "I'll think of some! I'm very cross and you almost died without even TELLING ME and—"

Some desperate energy borne of the charged moment, the exhilaration and terror of the closeness of death, possesses Tony, and he leans forward and kisses Loki. Loki freezes, and it takes Tony a moment to realize that he like, really actually freezes, ice spreading across Tony's face from where one of Loki's hands is still holding his cheek, a lot more tenderly than his shouting would suggest. He shivers, and starts to pull back, shit, shit, shit, why did he do that, he just screwed up the short time they had left to—

But the ice cracks, and now Loki has both hands on Tony's face and he's kissing him back, and oh.

Ohh.

They break for air and Loki presses his forehead against Tony's, brushing his hands through Tony's hair like it's something precious, like he wants to reassure himself Tony is still real. "You cloven-brained slackskulled goatson of a—"

"Gee, flatter a guy, why don't you," manages Tony weakly. Holy shit, Loki can KISS.

"I love you, you oblivious muesli-pated moron. And I will not. Let. You. Die." Loki leans in to kiss him again, harder, deeper, and Tony topples over backwards, only to find himself caught up in Loki's arms. Loki stands, hefting Tony as if he were no more burden than a child. Apparently carting around a huge gold staff gets you pretty toned? Loki shifts Tony's weight over to one arm, and uses his free hand to spread his cloak out on the floor of the cavern. He plunks Tony down on his back. Tony's arms cartwheel out behind him to catch himself, but no sooner do his palms hit the cloak than he finds them encased in ice, holding him up, semi-reclined. The ice is... warm, somehow, sparkling in the same way as the walls are, the same way normal ice, like, doesn't. Warm, but not melting—oh. Yeah. Frost giant magician. 

The frost giant magician in question has tugged away Tony's loin cloth again at some point, completely removing it this time. Tony's hand twitches in the ice, wanting to reach out to cover his suddenly quite eager cock, although judging by the fiery look in Lori's eyes, red as usual, but fierce and intense in a way Tony hasn't seen yet, the time for discretion is very, very past. He's distracted from this with the sight of Loki stepping out of his own clothing, tossing it aside without a glance, and then Loki is upon him, caging him in between two strong blue arms, those rich red eyes pinning him in place. 

Well, that and the ice.

"I, uh. Hi." whispers Tony. 

Loki grins, a little manic, and sits back a bit. He raises his hands, there's a flash as light is gathered around them, light, and heat. Loki plunges his hands down on to Tony's chest and 

OH

HOLY

SHIT

Tony sees stars, and god, and his mother, and... a horse?! and a meadow and an ice field and more stars, stars upon stars upon stars and everything is white light and heat and...

His vision returns, and he's GLOWING, he can feel himself radiating heat and light, and if it were normal ice around his hands it would surely have melted, but he's still held firmly in place. Loki is chanting furiously, the blue veins covering Tony's body fleeing before Loki's intense regard, being replaced with white lines, but not in the haphazard, organic patterns the palladine was tracing on his skin, but in bold, striking marks, some echoing symbols on Loki's runestones, some echoing the lines of the armature Tony had designed for the heart of Jotunheim, some—hah, is that a Hnefatafl—

Loki raises his hands and recites one last, shouted word. Tony abruptly realizes that he had stopped breathing, but he breathes in now at Loki's command, a mighty breath, and a thundering in his ears he hadn't noticed until now stops sounding, and he's himself again, small and whole and alive, alive and under Loki, whose eyes have returned to frost giant normal, if darker perhaps than the day before. 

Well. Tony's eyes are probably pretty dark right about now too.

"There," pronounces Loki, not moving from his perch over Tony's body. "Now you're not dying."

"Oh good," says Tony weakly. "That's... that's great." He's panting a bit. He's... wow, very, very warm, and... wet? Is the... okay, that's his cock, leaking on to his chest, well, this is embarrassing, and... oh. Oh hey. That's uh, that's Loki's cock, also leaking on to his chest. Teamwork! It's a very handsome cock, and very Loki-like: tall and proud and blue and very interested in Tony. Tony darts his gaze back up to Loki's face.

"Hi," says Tony.

"Hello, Tony." says Loki, amused.

"So uh, is all your healing this um, naked? Because I can how that would be popular."

Loki laughs. "In troth this is the first time it's happened this way." He glances down Tony body, eyes tracing the new white marks there before returning to meet Tony's gaze. "It seems rather more efficient than my traditional technique, though." 

Tony gulps. "It's ah, certainly very... stimulating. I feel, hoo. Quite, um. Vigorous." He bats his eyelashes. I mean, why not, at this point.

"Do you now," murmurs Loki.

Tony nods. "Uh huh. Yup. Could ah. Run laps or something."

"Or something," agrees Loki, his voice rich and low and oh god oh god Tony is going to explode. Okay. Okay. Stay cool, Tones, think of something smooth to say.

"PLEASE PLEASE FUCK ME NOW," Tony blurts out.

Okay uh... or that.

"I mean... if you... oh god of the forge, I'm sorry, I shouldn't... you said you didn't..."

"Is that what you'd like, Antonio of Vanaheim?" Loki takes Tony's chin in one hand, his voice suddenly very formal, but the look on his face is still one of vast amusement.

And yes. YES. That is what Tony would like. But first things first. 

"I'm not Antonio of Vanaheim. Not for you. I'm just." He pauses, then scrapes up his courage and continues. "I'm just plain Tony. Tony of... Tony of Loki." Tony swallows thickly. "If, if you'll have me."

Loki's gaze softens and he kisses Tony's forehead. "And? What would you like, Tony of Loki."

Tony takes in a deep breath, and breathes out all his nervousness, his anxiety, his doubts... and he smirks. 

"Listen, I already shouted please fuck me. I think my soldiers are on the board here, Lokaroo." 

"Well then," says Loki, and his voice... Tony _shivers._ "Let's play."

=====

Tony is half expecting a full-on ravishment, going by the wild power he felt coursing between them during his healing. But Loki is an attentive and tender lover; slow and implacable as a glacier, sweet kisses blending seamlessly into sucking attention to Tony's throat, his chest, his nipples, ach, gods. His nipples are swollen and used and engorged and all manner of overstimulated, and his poor untouched cock feels hard enough to use as an anvil when Tony finally bursts out with "Let me get my hands on you!" in a keening, squeaking voice that might have felt embarrassing if he wasn't already so thoroughly, thoroughly seen and known in his pleasure by Loki's hands, his eyes, his _tongue_...

Loki pops his head up at this, looking Tony over consideringly. "Mmm... no."

Tony pouts. "No?"

"No!" Loki laughs and the ice creeps a little further up Tony's arms to prison his elbows. It's still warm, like being in the loving grip of the world's friendliest armchair instead of in an icy cage. Warm and... what is... oh god of the forge, _tingling_.

"YOU ARE A BAD, BAD MAN." Tony is going to die after all, cured of poison but dead from the sheer molten desire eating him by inches here in Loki's arms, impossibly stimulated and helpless to act on it. 

Loki laughs.

Tony whines, high and needy and absolutely unable to contain the sound.

Loki snaps his fingers, and the maddening tingling stops, but Tony's arms remain trapped. "Now," says Loki. "I will loose you from your bonds, do you tell me but one more time: That you," His hands brush along Tony's sides. "Tony of Loki, truly wish," His nails rake briefly against Tony's tortured nipples, then carry on down to—"for this to end?" Loki's hand grips Tony's cock at this, firmly but with just enough slack that the trembling of Tony's body brings a little friction between them, the precome drooling out of Tony's member making it feel delicious and smooth and yet not enough, just a bit too light, not quite, not quite... 

"No," gasps out Tony. "No I don't want you to... oh god. Don't stop. Don't stop."

"Then I shan't," says Loki, and he releases Tony's cock. Hey, wait! Come back! But his hands are only moving to grip Tony's hips, and he's lifting him up, long clever fingers reaching down to stretch him open and—OH HELLO THERE, that's Loki's tongue, _inside him_. Tony is briefly panicked about this, because among many other deficiencies, the magical trial labyrinth has NOT included bathing facilities. But Loki seems untroubled, and Tony supposes philosophically that a man who could whisk lead out of a pot by lifting a finger could probably contrive to make Tony's ass taste like strawberries at the height of summer if the fancy took him. 

Huh, now _that_ would be a money-maker of a spell on Vanaheim.

But Tony's inclination to abstract thought is rapidly disappearing the longer Loki laps at his entrance, thumbs pulling gently at his rim, and then index fingers creeping in alongside that eager tongue, until Tony is loose and sloppy and utterly and completely devoid of any complete thoughts at all beyond YAYYYYYYYYYYY and perhaps OHHHHHHHH and other vowel sounds of a lascivious nature. Loki hums against his rim and Tony cries out, shakes, overwhelmed by the sensation, but even as he registers the vibration Loki is withdrawing, hands adjusting their grip on his hips, and then Loki's cock is plunging inside of him. 

Tony is no novice to the act of love; no Vanir of age is, unless they wish to be. He has dallied with lovers of all kind in festivals and in private chambers, in pairs or greater numbers, with all manner of artifices and aids.

Yet this—now, here, Loki inside of him—this feels different. Layered. Deeper. More. And to judge by the look on Loki's face, bewildered and awed as he seats himself fully inside of Tony, Loki feels it too.

=====

Loki stills, deep inside of Tony, poleaxed. He has enjoyed pleasing his sweet companion; riding the relief of his healing through to the delight of his body, sampling the sounds he makes in his pleasure. And yes, the tight warmth of him enclosing Loki's length is stimulating in all the usual ways. Loki may not seek out lovers often, but he hasn't been utterly chaste; he knows the act well enough to count it good, to consider it on the palette of affection he may select from in those rare moments of intimacy in his life.

But this.

Perhaps it's being in the questing chamber, perhaps it's being on his trial. Perhaps it's the emotional turmoil of nearly losing Tony and then not losing him, having him, more than having him, inhabiting him, knowing him. Perhaps, strong as his magic is, he has simply reached a threshold where his natural puissance is calling out for connection, for rootedness, for depth.

For more.

For he has it, now; in this moment he is inside Tony, yes, but he feels as though he is a bolt of lightning, striking through Tony to the core of the Jotnar plains and at the same time reaching up through the heavens. He is the root of the tree, the nerve in the flesh, the fire of thought, racing through every inch of land, every creature's heart. He is connected. He is complete. Tony's being, spirit and body joined with his, acts as a mirror, reflecting and redoubling his own power, over and over.

He is, so, so strong. And so awake, alert, the exhaustion from the artifact's priming and then purging the poison from Tony's veins gone, washed away in an overwhelming flood of magic.

Is this what the other shamans must reach for to petition the gods? Power flows through Loki with so much more ease than usual that he feels he understands now, a little, why the Council was so insistent that he take a partner first. He is strong enough, alone, to reach what others need this aid to achieve... but now that he, too, has the aid of a true lover, his reach is... extraordinary. 

The moment ebbs, the tide Loki is caught up in releasing him just enough to be aware of his body, to resume moving in Tony, pressing in again and again, unto the completion of the act. He is coming inside his lover, and he is distantly aware that Tony is coming too, not just by feeling his tightness clenching around him, but in some sense seeing into Tony's heart, feeling with him the surprise, the pleasure, the overflowing moment of release. Loki has just the presence of mind to remove the ice holding Tony in place before clutching him close to his chest and curling them sideways, rolling until Tony is atop him, tucking Tony's head under his chin tenderly, his cock still seated inside of him all the while. This should be sticky and awkward but it is instead a holy moment, and Loki closes his eyes and enters a trance. And unlike every trance he has sought out before, now he feels a gentle tug, almost imperceptible for how intertwined they still are, as Tony's spirit follows him down and inside to the ethereal realms.

=====

Loki has been here before. For some this place appears as a crossroads, for some a clearing, for some a village festival. To Loki it comes as a mighty river, formidable and wild. He came here alone last time, and sliced open the artery in his own neck to access the power to ford the river, then extinguished his spirit's flame on the far side in the stubborn rush that earned his second set of horns. He feels almost like he could fly across the river, such is the power flowing through him now, but that would not be fitting; there is a price, ancient and unchanging, to make that crossing, to ask a boon on the farther shore.

Loki steps forward to the water. Gleaming white raiment appears on his body, a meet adornment for the solemnity of his purpose. He wades in to his ankles and stops, holds out his hand. A knife appears, identical to his own ceremonial knife in waking life. Good. Right. Yes. Loki takes a deep breath and reaches up to make the cut—

—and is bowled over by a fierce blow. The knife skitters out of his reach as Tony, furious, stands over him.

"NO. FUCKING. WAY."

"Tony—"

"No. NO! I will not watch you kill yourself." Tony draws himself up to his full height, and he is small but great in spirit and in dignity, a righteous expression on his face. He bends down to take up the knife from where it has landed among the smooth river rocks. "No matter what I have to do."

"TONY!" Loki surges up to grab at the knife.

But he's too late; Tony's neck is open, blood staining the snow white robes that he wears now too, fanning out in billowing blooms in the frigid water that courses beneath them.

"Tony, what have you done?" whispers Loki, franticly pulling to him all the healing spells he can remember, hands on Tony's neck as if he could will the blood back in. And in waking life, with this kind of power? Maybe he could. Loki has healed grievous hurts in man and beast, including a goring wound in Tony's own body not two nights before, and so long as death has left him the smallest piece of life to fasten his will to and pull, Loki can cure near any ill. 

But not here. Death in this place is more than the last beat of a heart, the last soft breath out. Death here is a gift, and a price. 

A price Loki should have paid. A price for _Jotnar_ blood to pay. Not Tony, sweet soft Tony, who is no healer, no shaman, not a frost giant, nor even a willing visitor to this land. "It should have been me," croaks Loki, aghast, watching the colour fade from Tony's cheeks, feeling his body grow heavy in the water as Loki's spells bounce off him, failures, his mending lattice work dissolving in the life's blood that pours from Tony's body. "It should have been me," he repeats.

"No, child, it could not have been you."

A voice, ancient and yet familiar, surrounds Loki, and the water is gone, _Tony_ is gone, and Loki is not ready for that, is not ready for any of this. 

"Arise, son of Laufey," the voice instructs, and now Loki does look around. The river is gone and he is in a grassy meadow at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean, some ocean; not the icy waters Loki knows a day's ride from home, but some brighter, softer place in a kinder landscape. The horse from his meditation vision stands before him, flowers bedecking its mane now, waiting for him to focus his attention.

"Spirit. How come I here? I didn't... I didn't die."

"No, Loki Laufeyson, you did not. You could not. When you die a third time, it will be your last; it will be to join us here for good, after the fullness of your life in the nine realms. Now is not your time."

"Or mine, apparently," says Tony, appearing beside the horse. He is in a fresh white robe, free of blood or other mark, and his neck is untouched, unhurt. 

But he has antlers. A dainty rack, velvety spikes with one branch each, a springtime growth in a doe's first year. It's perfect for his size, for his sweetness. As Loki watches, a small white flower blooms from one of the branches, and a butterfly comes to land on it, then another, and then they are surrounded by them, one alighting on Tony's outstretched finger. Tony giggles. "This place is kind of ridiculous, isn't it?" he asks.

Loki waits a moment for the butterfly to flit away from Tony's hand and then crushes him to himself in a rough embrace. "Tony," starts Loki, the rest of the sentence caught in his throat, his eyes suddenly thick with tears. "Tony," he tries again.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm here," Tony mumbles from where his face is mashed against Loki's chest. Chastened, Loki releases his grip enough for Tony to take a half-step back and get a breath in, though he immediately slumps back forward into the circle of Loki's arms, happy enough to be held after... everything. 

"My Tony," whispers Loki into his hair.

The horse whinnies, delighted. "Oh, young love is just so sweet!" 

Loki shoots it a poisonous glare. "If I was not to be allowed to die—"

"WHICH YOU'RE NOT," interjects Tony into his armpit.

"Yes, yes, we're all very alive. Hush." Loki turns back to the horse, addressing it and whatever deities unseen were attending to this gymkhana. "You promised I would have the chance to redeem my father's sin. If I was barred from reaching these shores all along, how then could your word be true? Why have you played me false?" This is a bit harsh for petitioning the gods themselves, but Loki has had a very, very long afternoon. Anyway, at least it's not a dick joke this time.

"But you're not barred," says the horse gently. "You're here."

"At the price of Tony's life!"

"Yes," agrees the horse. "That was the price."

Loki is silent, taken aback.

"You were not barred from coming here to make your request," continues the horse. "You earned that right through the completion of your tasks, and we are proud, Loki, for you are a clever child, a crafty child. You were never barred from coming here. Only from spilling your own blood to do so."

Loki pinches the bridge of his nose. "Are you telling me," he asks, dangerously patient, "that this whole time, my trial has STILL been to find a bloody partner?"

Laughter surrounds him, not just from the horse, but from unseen sources on all sides.

"Well that's creepy," remarks Tony.

"Did you think you could dictate the terms of your own trial, Laufeyson?" one voice said.

"Well yes, since you told me I could," replies Loki, a bit peevish. 

"And in a way you did," tries the horse, a little more diplomatic than the unseen spirits. "For you may still rectify your father's wrong, do you wish it. But to escape the trial you were set... no. That you cannot do. We just extended it slightly after you came to complain."

"Extended it."

"You seemed so uncomfortable about just hopping into bed with him. Really, we hardly ever have this problem with the pimply little shamans who usually come to call."

Tony snickers. Loki schools his face. His older cousin Aelfric, the last shaman to be called, does fit the bill: both wracked with acne and very, very eager to bed anything and anyone who expressed the slightest interest. "It's called discretion," says Loki primly.

"Yes, dear, you're very refined and so forth. So, we gave you some time to get to know each other. And didn't that work out?" 

Loki is about to reply with something snarky when Tony pokes him in the ribs. He looks down and finds Tony looking expectantly at him, one eyebrow raised. Oh, very well.

"All right, yes, it worked out. Your all-knowing godliness has humbled me, et cetera." Loki bows low and sincere before the horse as he says this to take some of the sting out of the sarcasm. He has been pushing his luck a bit of late in matters divine. He straightens and continues. "So, I am here."

"You are here," repeats the horse.

"Then I wish to make my request."

"WE ATTEND THEE," says the horse and the chorus of unseen voices.

Time to put this to rest. Loki draws himself up and begins to intone, with feeling. "Jotunheim languishes. The crops fail us; wombs are barren; children sicken. Magic grows sluggish and our prayers echo around us unheeded." This is maybe laying it on a bit thick, but gods seem to like that kind of thing. "With my partner," Loki tugs Tony in closer to him. "I have created an artifact, a new home for the heart of the Jotnar soul. The Casket of Ancient Winters is lost to us, a gulf of war severing it from our hearts. But the life within us must continue. Spirits, gods, grant my desire."

"SPEAK IT," busts out the spooky chorus.

"Endow the hearth we have created with the heart of our people. Let the land and the life upon it be joined in harmony once more."

"IT IS DONE," say the voices, and the little box of ice and pewter from the cave appears in front of the horse, floating, but the soft pulsing blue light inside it is gone, replaced now with a roaring blue flame. Loki can feel the power of it tugging at his heart, a little piece of him contributing its fraction to the gathered fire of all his people. "BEHOLD NOW THE HEARTH OF WINTER'S WELCOME. LONG MAY IT SHELTER THE JOTNAR FLAME OF LOVE."

Tony gasps. "I feel it," he says softly, one hand rubbing over his own heart unconsciously. "I can feel the box."

Loki looks down at him in wonder. "Can you really?"

The horse looks smug. "He has died to reach the undying shores, and he is Marked, even as you are, Loki. How could he be other than Jotnar now?"

Oh...! 

Loki leans down and kisses Tony's hair. "How indeed."

=====

The horse spends a good fifteen further minutes imparting embarrassing advice for a long and healthy romantic partnership. By the time it gets to a favoured recipe for a slippery balm as an "aid to closeness," Tony starts to realize this is less about advice and more about tormenting Loki for fun. Which is hilarious, but enough is enough. Tony slumps against Loki's chest, feigning sleep, and Loki, bless him, does not miss his cue.

"Honoured spirit," Loki says. "I will take your words to heart. Yet let me now depart, that I may lay my lover down to rest in a bower, for he has laboured bravely and long on this day."

"Oh, you're just so sweet with him," gushes the horse. Loki is beginning to suspect the horse is the spirit of a particular aunt who used to ruffle his hair and leave it sticking up the wrong way in his youth. "Well, you've quite earned a rest I suppose. Go well, Loki Laufeyson. Go well, Tony Howardson."

And just like that they are back in the ice cave, where the campfire is still cozily burning, but which now has a exit to the outside world. Tony darts outside and then back in a few times, just to make sure it's real.

"Howardson?" asks Loki.

"I mean, yes? Howard is my father. Although on Vanir I would be styled Prince Antonio, the Viscount Carbonell, heir to the Earldom of Stark. There's this whole boring courtesy title thing, and oh god, please let's not talk about it again. I am not going back there. You heard the horse, I'm an honourary blueberry now."

"A _blueberry._ "

"Frost giant. Jotnar. Whatever. I mean, I get that I won't actually turn that fetching shade of blue, which is just as well because I don't actually want to literally have blue balls, I mean, you make them look good, but—"

Loki cuts him off with a kiss. Tony beams up at him, then wobbles a bit. He really is sleepy. Who knows how much time passed in that weirdo river of reincarnation, but with the building and the dramatic arguing and the healing and the smooching and the killing himself and getting antlered up, and—well, it's been a long day. Besides, it's dark outside, now that they can actually see the outside.

Loki lays out his cloak and lies down on one side of it, tucking Tony into his side and then drawing the rest of the cloak over them for warmth. "Sleep well now, love. Tomorrow you meet my village." Loki pauses, looking stricken. "Lord of winters, the Council is going to be _insufferable_ when I return with a partner."

"I'm worth it," murmurs Tony.

Loki smoothes the hair back from Tony's forehead and kisses it again. "You are," he replies. "And Ragnbjorg is going to have an apoplexy when he sees your antlers."

"'sat good?" inquires Tony sleepily.

"Very," replies Loki. "Sweet dreams, little blueberry."

**Author's Note:**

> The land began to recover as soon as the Hearth of Winter's Welcome was complete, but Tony convinced Loki to give it a kickstart with some Vanaheim-style field-fuc—er, a dignified fertility ritual on the way back to the village.
> 
> Ragnbjorg was too busy being smug about Loki knuckling under and taking a mate to care about Tony's antlers. (Loki, who has never knuckled under to anything in his life, just rolls his eyes.) The apoplexy came later when Tony SCHOOLED him at Hnefatafl. 
> 
> Years later Thor inherits Odin's throne, and in a merciful mood decides to return the Casket to the Jotnar. Loki, a member of the Council of Nine by this point, says "Oh, that. Why don't you hang on to it and keep your spare keys in it or something," pats Thor on the cheek, and walks off. Tony meanwhile has hung a flower crown on one of the horns of Thor's helm, because Tony's antlers keep sprouting flowers when he's happy and he has to do _something_ with them.


End file.
